Tag Archives: DC

At a comfortable apartment with a beer in hand, laughs seemingly flowing from the walls, and great company being enjoyed by all, I am introduced to a new style of gaming: the deck-building card game. Specifically DC Comics deck-builder. I was apprehensive at first, due to the initial comparison of it being similar to Magic: The Gathering, of which I’ve only heard negative reviews about simply because you win if you have enough money to buy really good cards. I don’t like the idea of a friendly competition based solely on money, as I have very little of it and would not be using any of my gas/food/internet/child support money for a few colorfully printed cards. It would seem ridiculously frivolous and irresponsible. And of course, I’m a responsible adult….

ummm…right…

This game, however, is a much friendly version for those of us with light wallets. You start by randomly selecting a hero, all of which have bonuses of some sort. Then, you take 10 cards which reside between your hand and your pull-up deck, 5 of which start in your hand. There are 5 cards on the table, face up, which display other heroes, villains, equipment, locations, and powers. You can then buy these cards by discarding your from your hand, which are all assigned points to be used to purchase the face up cards on the table, and use these newly bought cards. The discarded cards are eventually shuffled back into your pull-up deck, which you can eventually use in your hand to again buy more cards.

The object to the game is to collect points and have the most points by the time all the super-villains are bought.

Oh, did I forget to mention the super villains?

So, there is a pile of super villains which can be bought, one at a time, and they all contribute to your total score at the end of the game. Not only that, they also have attacks and they use these attacks every time a super-villain is purchased. This can be helpful, but most of the time it’s all around counter productive to everyone.

I felt very comfortable during my second game. I knew what to do, or at least the rules of game play, and was able to quickly develop a strategy. My first game I was Batman, my favorite comic book character. Ever. Sonic the Hedghog takes a close second. But being Batman in this game feels very much how I’d expect it to feel, and they emphasize on his use of gadgets rather brilliantly! I appreciated the designer’s attention to useful resources and how they incorporated particularly important items into the game, such as his cape and cowl, the bat signal, the utility belt, and etc. because it made me feel like I could visualize myself in character, which was a very nice escapism, and isn’t that what all games aim to provide? The next game was not as immersed, I must say, due to the fact that I was Cyborg, a character I literally know nothing about and felt very inadequate playing, but quickly realized my knowledge of the character meant absolutely nothingbecause the game was so well designed. So well, in fact, that I won the second game. I lost while playing as Batman, which felt rather embarrassing, to be honest. Almost like I let the Dark Knight down. Silly, perhaps, I know. It’s the kid inside of me that was screaming “Injustice!!!!”

It’s a relatively newer game, being unboxed in 2012, the same year as The Dark Knight Rises. Good year. Actually, I’m awfully biased to 2012, but that’s where I end.

All in all, I’d give this game a solid 8 out of 10. Though it was spectacularly easy to play, I did find that some of the characters were a little too weighted compared to others, particularly some of the super villains, which I guess is to be expected. Just be aware of Parallax!